Free Cold Dead Past by John Curtis Page A

the sort of thing I’d have expected here and certainly nothing like anything else I’ve seen in the ten years I’ve been doing this job," he said, as he pulled the sheet down from Charlie’s face and torso.  This exposed gaping, ragged wounds to his throat and chest.
    "Maybe in New York or Los Angeles, but not here."
    At the sight of the body, Gary’s jaw dropped and his cigarette fell from his lips.
    "Please, deputy, a little decorum."
    "I’m sorry, doc," Gary said, "I just hadn’t gotten such a good look at the body before now.  No wonder Neame didn’t want to handle this himself.  You know, usually he’d be all over something as high profile as this, but he’s kinda squeamish when it comes to this part of it."
    Nelson ground the butt into the linoleum and pulled another one from the pack.  His hands had a slight tremor as he lit the cigarette.
    "You know, if you keep that up, I may be seeing you here," said the doctor.
    Gary crossed over to a corner of the embalming table. His face screwed up into the kind of look someone might give if they’d just found out their dog had died while taking a gulp from a carton of sour milk.
    "Jesus.  What a mess."  He took a step back and turned to Franklin. "So tell me a story."
    The doctor circled around to the other side of the table and began his litany.
    "From a gross observation of the wounds appearing on the body, I’d say the subject died from severe trauma and loss of blood."
    "No shit, doc," said the deputy.
    Franklin’s face turned red and he gave Gary a deadly look.
    "Listen!  There are certain procedures that have to be followed in these things.  Either we do this by the numbers or you can dig through my report on your own.  You or your lazyass boss.  I can guarantee you that it’ll be ten times worse than spending a few minutes with me now."
    Gary put up his hands as if to fend off a blow.
    "Alright, alright."
    Franklin continued, "A close inspection of the internal organs revealed an incipient case of…"
    "What?" asked Gary.
    "Early.  An incipient case of duodenal ulcers.  Also an advanced case of cirrhosis of the liver.  Other than that, he had no major evidence of disease.  Now wasn’t that better than wading through four pages of my handwriting?"
    "So what do you think caused his injuries?  An animal?"
    Franklin walked back over to the side counter.
    "Ah, now this is where it gets really interesting."
    He came back to the table with a hinged model of human teeth, opened the jaws, and held them up to the wound on the cadaver’s throat.
    "Get a good look."
    Gary leaned in for a closer look as he held the teeth up to the tear.
    "Can you see how closely the pattern matches?"
    "But look at the size difference.  I admit they look similar, but-"
    Franklin snapped the jaws shut in Gary’s face, causing him to jump back.
    "I’m not saying the person had to be this size, just that it could have been done by a human mouth."
    He set the model down on the table, then moved down the body to the gaping, ragged hole in Charlie’s chest.  A sort of fire came into his eyes that one might see from a child opening a Christmas present.
    "Now. Take a look at this.  I opened up the chest and guess what I found?"
    Gary shook his head.
    With an excited pitch up in his voice Franklin said, "The only organ missing was the heart. It looks like it was ripped out of the body."
    "Just like an animal," said Nelson.
    "No. Not like an animal.  It couldn’t have been," Franklin retorted. He put his gloved hand into the hole in Charlie’s chest up to his wrist. "The wound is right below the sternum.  An animal would have just torn into the body and gutted it.  Whoever did this knew what they were looking for.  The only damage to other organs inside the body cavity was incidental to this."
    Franklin slipped his hand back out of the body and then walked over to a trash can in the corner to throw his gloves away. The snap they made as he pulled them off was like an